I said, “Oh, his pore wife——”

Will said, “We’ll have to be good to him and go see him and take him cigarettes and maybe slip him a pint of ’shine now and again.”

I said, “The way he loved his freedom—shutting him up in the crazy-house will be like putting a wild-cat in a crocus sack.”

Doc said, “Oh, he ain’t in the asylum right now. He’s broke loose. That’s what makes me feel so bad. He’s headed this way, and no telling the harm he’ll do before he’s ketched again.”

Everybody jumped up and begun feeling in their hip pockets for their guns.

Doc said, “No use to try to put no guns on him. He’s got his’n and they say he’s shooting just as accurate as ever.”

That was enough for me. I ran back of the counter at the garage and begun locking up.

I said, “Doc, you’re a sight. ’Tain’t no time to go to feeling sorry for Uncle Benny and our lives and property in danger.”

Doc said, “I know, but I knowed him so long and I knowed him so good. I can’t help feeling bad about it.”

I said, “Do something about it. Don’t just set there, and him liable to come shooting his way in any minute.”

Doc said, “I know, but what can anybody do to stop him? Pore man, with all them deputies after him.”

Will said, “Deputies?”

Doc said, “Why, yes. The sheriff at Ocala asked me would I stop along the road and leave word for all the deputies to try and ketch him. Pore ol’ Benny, I’ll swear. I hated doing it the worst way.”

I scooped the money out of the cash register and I told them, “Now, men, I’m leaving. I’ve put up with Uncle Benny Mathers when he was drunk and I’ve put up with him when he was cutting the fool. But the reckless way he drives that Ford and the way he shoots a pistol, I ain’t studying on messing up around him and him gone cold-out crazy.”

Doc said, “Ain’t a thing in the world would stop him when he goes by, and all them deputies after him, but a barricade acrost the road.”

I said, “Then for goodness’ sake, you sorry, low-down, no-account, varminty white men, tear down the wire fence around my chicken yard and fix Uncle Benny a barricade.”

Doc said, “I just hated to suggest it.”

Will said, “He’d slow down for the barricade and we could come in from behind and hem him in.”

Doc said, “It’ll be an awful thing to hem him in and have to see him sent back to Chattahoochie.”

Will said, “I’ll commence pulling out the posts and you-all can wind up the fencing.”